


The Beast

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Airships, Beauty and the Beast AU, Gladio is Beauty, Ignis gives Gladio a library like he deserves, Ignis is the beast, M/M, Pirate AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-05-31 14:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Ignis Scientia was only a child when King Somnus declared war on the airship pirates that plagued the skies. Somnus sent his brother, the wizard Ardyn, to kill the crew of the Regalia and make an example of the survivors, and Ignis got caught in the crossfire. Cursed to live as a monstrous beast while his friends survive as cursed automatons, Ignis vows revenge...While Gladio, caught between a proposition of an unbearable marriage of convenience and his own desire for freedom, finds his life is put on hold when his father is held hostage by a nightmare crew of cursed pirates. He seeks them out, taking his father's place in Ignis' ship, and learns that the vicious creature who claims to be captain is far more than he appears.A Beauty and the Beast Steampunk Airship Pirate AU, because why not.





	1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time, there lived a boy who was _not_ a prince. 

The boy’s name was Ignis Scientia, and he was _not_ a prince for a very simple reason: His best friend Noctis _was_. Noctis was six years old, and he was the only son of the dread pirate king, Captain Regis Lucis Caelum. Captain Regis was a wonderful king, the kind who could laugh and tell stories in the lamplight of the children’s quarters, his deft hands making fantastic shadows on the wall—and a terrible king, the kind who could strike a man through the heart on the deck of his ship, then push their body over the side to be someone else’s problem. Noctis was supposed to be captain one day, too, destined to lead the great airship Regalia, but no one other than Ignis seemed to think so.

“It’s a shame,” said Captain Regis one afternoon, while Ignis was practicing his sword drills with Prompto. Prompto was a young boy they’d stolen from an enemy ship a few months back, soft and friendly and a little too loud, and he was absolutely terrible with a sword. Still, Noct was too busy snuggled up in his wheelchair with his star maps and diagrams to bother to pick up a blade, so Ignis was stuck with Prompto when one of the older crew members couldn’t be bothered. 

“He’s whip-smart, though,” said Ignis’ uncle. He tapped Ignis’ sword with his palm. “Angle it higher, lad.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

“It will be an uphill battle with his heart condition, Basil,” Regis said. “Let him be a pilot—He was practically born for it. Ignis can take over when I’m gone.”

Ignis stumbled, and Prompto smacked him in the side with the flat of his sword. 

“Got you!” Prompto shouted. “Oh. Oh, sorry, Iggy.”

“What do you mean, take over?” Ignis asked. 

Captain Regis and Ignis’ uncle shot each other sideways looks, and Regis waved a hand at Prompto. Prompto took off for Noct, crowing about his victory, while Ignis slowly let his sword point drop to the deck. 

“When will you be gone?” Ignis asked, in a soft voice. 

Regis shakily lowered himself to his good knee, looking Ignis in the eye. “Ignis. You’ve always said you wanted to be my boy’s right-hand man, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” Ignis said. 

“That’s all it is,” said Regis. “You’ll be his right-hand man, just like you want, but you’ll get an extra title to go with it. Captain. You’ll wear the hat and the sword when you’re a man, and until then, you’ll be a prince of the skies.”

He ruffled Ignis’ hair and stood, gesturing for Ignis’ uncle to follow him down the deck. Ignis watched them go, and felt as though the deck of the airship were plummeting under his feet, sending him reeling into the distant blue.

“But I’m _not_ a prince,” he whispered. 

Noctis took the news better than anyone. “I always wanted to fly, anyways,” he said, when Ignis climbed into the upper bunk to tell him what the captain had said. “Dad and I talked about it. It’s why I’m taking all those extra lessons.”

“But… but you’re _supposed_ to be captain,” Ignis said. 

“Captains have to do all the gross stuff,” Noct said, picking up one of his astronomy books. “Like killing and screaming and _lists._ I don’t have to tell anyone what to do if I’m a pilot, and you get to use the sword and boss people around. It’ll be great.”

“It feels wrong,” Ignis said, and yelped as Prompto’s round face popped up from below. Noct beamed, and Prompto swung himself onto the bunk, scrambling and fumbling for purchase. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Noct said, as Ignis helped drag Prompto up. “Between you, me, and Prompto, no one’ll care who’s captain. We’ll be the best pirates in the world.”

But they never did become the best pirates in the world.

Because before Ignis turned nine, King Somnus of the land below declared war on piracy, and sent his wizards to blast ships out of the sky. News came by the day of more ships lost to the king’s magic, and Regis had to call on his old shipmates who had gone to land, planning a raid on the stronghold of Ardyn Izunia, King Somnus’ brother and greatest of his wizards. The Regalia was docked next to an old lighthouse and covered with concealment spells, and Ignis, Prompto, Noctis, and the other kids under fifteen were left in the care of a few trusted sailors while the crew descended to earth. 

No one dared turn on a light, even the guards, and the children all sat in their bunks in the dark, listening for the crackle of magic or the thump of boots coming up the ladder. At first, the guards came in to check on them every hour, but some time after midnight, they stopped coming. Noctis nearly screamed at the sound of a soft thump on the deck below, and Prompto almost caused a riot by unlocking the trap door over the escape ladder.

“It’s probably nothing,” Ignis whispered.

Then came the tapping. It was sharp, urgent, insistent, like a bird pecking at the metal underbelly of the ship, and it came echoing up the ladder and ticking through the room. 

_Tap_  
Tap tap.  
Tap-tap-tap tap-tap. 

“One of us needs to get the guards,” someone whispered. 

“Ignis?” 

Ignis felt the gaze of every kid in the room turn to him, and fury simmered in his stomach. They should have turned to _Noct._ Ignis wasn’t their leader—Even Noct wasn’t their leader, not yet. No one should have looked to _him_ for help. But when no one else jumped down, and the tapping kept going, Ignis sighed and slithered down to the floor. 

“Take a sword,” Noct whispered. Ignis nodded and grabbed the sword propped up beside the trap door, and clumsily buckled it around his pajamas. Then, slowly, carefully, he unlatched the door and propped his foot on the top rung of the ladder. 

Below Ignis’ bare feet, the man tapping on the deck paused and looked up. His dark hair blew in the breeze, and his long jacket flapped like the wings of a bat. He raised his oak staff, and light shone in a nimbus around him, revealing his handsome face and ruffled collar. 

“Oh, my,” he said, in a slow drawl. “You don’t _look_ like a pirate king.”

“It’s a wizard!” Ignis heard someone whisper, and he waved frantically at the trap door. 

“Lock the door!” he shouted. “Guards! Luche! Libertus! Nyx!”

“I don’t believe they’ll answer,” the wizard said, and Ignis’ chest tightened at the sight of three strange, twisted-up shapes on the deck. They weren’t human, not really, more like… puppets, made of brass and copper and tin, with jerky little limbs and torsos like old pillars. 

“Don’t you come any closer,” Ignis shouted. He trembled as he climbed down, step by torturous step, sword banging on the ladder. He had to protect the others. Protect Noct. “I’m warning you! I’m… I’m the prince of the pirates! My dad’s the king, and if you hurt my crew—”

“Gods above,” the wizard said, rolling his eyes. “ _This_ is the boy?”

Ignis’ heart hammered furiously, thrumming through his chest, his throat, his head, eclipsing the sound of his ragged breathing. He tasted metal on his tongue, sharp and bitter, and when he drew his sword, his sweaty hand slipped on the hilt. 

“You heard me,” Ignis said. “I’m the prince of the pirates, and you’re going to get off my ship.”

“Gladly,” the wizard said. “But not before I’ve earned my keep.” He raised his staff, and Ignis fell back, his sword clattering uselessly across the deck. Above him, the sky wheeled, and the laughter of the king’s wizard wound through the air, sinking into the darkness behind the stars.

“Now, my prince,” the wizard said, as the light of his staff shone in Ignis’ eyes, blotting out the sky, “ _this_ will probably hurt a great deal.”

**Lucis, Fourteen Years Later**

Clarus Amicitia, captain of King Somnus’ Crownsguard, tucked his watch in his pocket and peered into the gloom. It was a shit night for flying, by all accounts—a warm front from the South was playing havoc with the rudder, and the poor deckhands were working overtime—but they all had their orders. On clear nights, when the clouds weren’t fogging up the fucking place, he could just see the lights of the village where his children waited for him, and the distant glow of the capital city of Insomnia beyond. Now, he was lucky if he could see to the end of the deck. 

“Terrible night,” said his lieutenant, Anderson, mopping the back of his neck. “Think we should turn back?”

“I’ve flown in worse,” Clarus said. 

“I bet,” Anderson said, and Clarus shot him a sharp look. The sailors around them went quiet, suddenly intent on their work, and Clarus took a long, steadying breath. They were all from military families, scions of admirals and captains and commanders, not a stain on their records, and not one of them could have held their own in a true skirmish, back in the day. Only Clarus, with his blacked-out personnel file and the snide whispers that followed him down the halls of HQ, remembered what it was like to stand back to back with a sailor and run some poor bastard through, blood in his teeth and terror prickling his skin. 

He sighed and stepped out onto the deck, letting the cool night air rush past him. Sometimes, if he closed his eyes and ignored the creaking of his joints, he could almost remember what it felt like, standing at Regis’ side, black banners snapping in the breeze—

“Sir! Captain!”

Clarus opened his eyes. A young sailor ducked his head, bobbing on the balls of his feet. “Speak,” Clarus said. 

“A ship, Captain,” the sailor said. Clarus felt his blood turn to ice. “There’s a ship on our port side, through the clouds. I think it’s using the cloud cover to—”

“Yeah, I know what they’re doing,” Clarus said. “Ring the bells. Get Commander Biggs to the bridge—I’ll need him on the controls.” He strode forward, snatching a looking glass from some poor, frantic petty officer, and squinted into the clouds. There. A shadow, rapidly approaching from the port side, too close, far too close—

Clarus flung himself to the deck as, emerging from the cloud like a ghost from the aether, the pirate ship Regalia burst into view. 

“No,” he whispered. 

She was just as he remembered her. The propellers were polished, her tarp plated with steel to deflect bullets at her weak points, deck shining with polish in the dim moonlight. Shadows crawled along the deck and over ladders pinned to the side, and Clarus snarled, rising to his feet. This was his ship, his and Regis’, never mind that Clarus had retired long before Somnus and his dogs came for them. Whoever had commandeered her would soon know the bite of a true member of the Regalia’s crew—

“Hello, there!” 

The voice that rang from the deck of the Regalia was low and cultured, with a familiar timbre that Clarus couldn’t quite pin down. He picked himself up, and spotted a great, hulking shape on the deck, and a cloak flapping in the cross-breeze. Black flags wove from the crow’s nest and rigging above him, and he raised a hand that seemed far too large to be real. A costume, perhaps, meant to terrify merchants.

“You have stolen a pirate vessel,” Clarus shouted, in his best military bellow, “and approached a ship of His Majesty’s Airforce. Surrender now, and you will be spared for the king’s mercy.”

“Stolen?” the man called back. He crouched on the rail, and Clarus frowned as something flicked at the cloak, making it twitch against the wind. “Oh no. This ship is mine. I inherited it.”

Clarus winced as the bright spotlight from the upper decks flicked on, shining a circle of light on the deck of the Regalia. It slid over the man crouched on the railing, and Clarus cursed, drawing his sword with fumbling fingers. 

The creature on the railing bared its teeth. Behind it, a horde of monsters, all gleaming with brass and copper, hissed and spat and roared into the night.

“You made us beasts,” the creature said, and its leg muscles bunched, the curved horns on its head curving down into shadow. “So beasts you shall have.”

Clarus’ crew fell apart around him, footsteps thundering across the deck in a mad rush to safety, and Clarus braced his feet and raised his sword against the nightmare leaping across the gap, its maw open in a hideous snarl of triumph.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’ll have to come down eventually!”

Gladiolus Amicitia propped his feet up on the rickety railing of his childhood treehouse, basking in the light of the sunrise. The treehouse was overgrown, now—After fifteen years without Gladio and his father to hack at vines and replace rotting wood, the only piece worth keeping was the deck, which jutted out of the trees like the prow of a ship. Still, it was nice to know the deck was there. It felt like something of _his,_ the only real claim he could stake on a small town he hadn’t so much as thought about since they moved to the capital. 

He turned a page of his novel and blew a bee off his wrist. “I can stay here as long as I want,” he said, and a shadow shifted beneath him. “Might move in.”

His little sister Iris blew her bangs out of her eyes. “He’s been standing at the front porch for ten minutes,” she called.

Gladio jiggled his foot. “Tell him I’m lost,” he said. “Say I read too many books, and I’m trying to punch a windmill to death.”

“Fight your own battles,” Iris said. “Move over, I’m coming up.”

Gladio sighed and shifted, sending leaves fluttering down to the dead grass below. Iris was already climbing, her dark hair glittering with pins, new dress tied up to her knees. Her buckled shoes were left behind in the grass, prim and polished and nothing like the girl who climbed trees barefoot, and her hat was already rolling down the hill. She grunted as she swung over the rail, and plopped next to Gladio with an aggrieved sigh.

“What’cha reading?” she asked. Gladio angled the book towards her, and she grimaced. “ _Pirate’s Fancy?_ Really?”

“Hey, it might be trash, but it’s my trash,” Gladio said. 

“Yeah, well, I guess you won’t be able to read anything fun when you’re married to Ravus. I bet all his books are just there for show.”

“No one’s getting married to Ravus,” Gladio said, turning a page.

“He sure thinks so.” Iris lowered her voice, twisting her face in an impressive scowl. “Join the navy with me, Gladio. I iron my socks and you eat dry noodles from the jar like a goblin, we’re meant for each oth—“

“Hey, what the fuck, Iris—“

“Oh, my _love,_ ” Iris crooned, flinging herself on Gladio’s arm like a dying fish. “Let’s get _tax benefits_!”

“Well,” said a low, clipped voice beneath them. Iris froze, clinging to Gladio, as Ravus Nox Fleuret squinted up at them, holding her hat in both hands. “I found your hat in the rosebushes.”

Iris flushed red and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Oh. Thanks, Ravus.”

Ravus nodded. He was dressed in his military uniform, a black and white suit with the crest of Tenebrae and Lucis’ joint division on the shoulder, and his silver hair was tied back with a simple ribbon. He peered up at Gladio, taking in his rough, patched work clothes with well-bred disdain.

“I have news,” he said.

“I know,” Gladio said, before he could start. He raised his book another inch. “Recruitment ends in two weeks. We’ll make a good example for the troops. You have sixty acres in Insomnia.”

“It’s about your father,” Ravus said, and Gladio let his book fall to his lap. Ravus’ face was pale, and his fingers were clenched tight around Iris’ hat.

“What?” Iris sat up. “What about Dad?”

“Stay here, Iris,” Gladio said, and clambered over the deck. He dropped to the ground with a thump, and Ravus took a step back, holding the hat to his chest like a shield. “What news?”

“There was an attack,” Ravus said, and Gladio felt the world shift beneath him, pitching like a ship in a cross breeze. “Pirates struck two royal airships last night. The Izunia and the Crownsguard.”

“Pirates?” Gladio’s stomach lurched. He thought of the journals in his father’s study, the old maps and star charts, the sword he kept nailed to the mantle. “They aren’t saying he knew?”

Ravus cleared his throat. “Survivors say one of their attackers recognized him. He was taken aboard the Regalia at midnight, and there’s been no word since.”

Gladio took a long, unsteady breath. Above him, he could hear Iris climbing back down, stirring the branches. “So they think he defected.”

“We can’t be sure,” Ravus said. He refused to look Gladio in the eye. “But we all know he’s familiar with the Regalia.“

“He’s been in the Lucian military since I was a kid,” Gladio said. “You’re saying they think he’s gone rogue just ‘cause someone stole his old ship? After twenty years?”

Ravus stepped forward, taking Gladio by the arm. “I know it’s a shock,” he said. “Stay with me for a time. Iris can use Luna’s room—She’s still earning her staff, she won’t mind—and I can ensure that the king doesn’t turn his gaze your way. If you have the name of Nox Fleuret to protect you—“

“I don’t need your name,” Gladio said. He shook Ravus off. “Thank you for the message.”

“Gladio, if you don’t align yourself with the king now, I can’t promise—“

“Goodbye, Ravus,” Gladio said. He gestured to Iris, who was standing with her shoes in her hands, looking small and lost. “Come on.”

“You said they took him?” Iris whispered. “Isn’t someone looking for him? Won’t the king get him back?”

Ravus was silent. Despite his disapproval of the way Gladio ran the Amicitia house, Ravus _liked_ Iris. He was always buying her new cloth from the city for her sewing projects, and she and Luna were thick as thieves, walking through the village arm-in-arm whenever Luna was on leave from her apprenticeship. When faced with Iris’ open, pained expression, Ravus couldn’t bring himself to lie.

“Oh,” Iris said. “I see.”

“Let’s go inside,” Gladio said, and swung an arm around her shoulders. She walked with him into the cottage, leaving Ravus alone under the treehouse, holding her discarded hat in his hands while a wind whipped the trees into a frenzy against the cloudless sky.

Gladio locked the door behind him, and Iris closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her mouth was twisted in a hard line, and her hands were tight fists at her side, smothered in her dress.

“Alright,” she said. “What’s the plan?”

Gladio held his breath. Iris almost looked like their father for a moment, stern and no-nonsense in her dirty dress and bare feet, and he couldn’t trust himself to speak. He let out a gusty sigh and jerked his head towards the study.

“If the Regalia took him, whoever took his ship is probably using one of their old hiding places,” Gladio said, fishing the key out of the liquor cabinet. Iris nodded, eyes bright, and followed him into the study. “Do you know where Dad kept his maps? You used to play chess on them, right?”

“Under the elephant,” Iris said. She stood on tiptoe to reach the jade elephant statue on the dresser, and lifted it off a narrow wooden box. Gladio broke the lock off their father’s bookcase while she set the box on the desk, and started taking out books one by one. “You don’t think they’d actually use an old hiding spot, do you?”

“Thieves are lazy,” Gladio said. “And if it’s a good spot, why move? Gods, I wish Dad said something about it.”

“He never talks about the old days,” Iris said, unrolling a map. 

“He used to tell me stories, sometimes,” Gladio said. He skimmed through another book. “But when the king raided the pirate dens, he, uh. He stopped.”

Which wasn’t exactly a lie. He _had_ stopped, eventually, but only because Gladio’s mother practically forced him to. Gladio still remembered the dress she wore the night she left, the way she’d braided her hair, the fury in her eyes.

 _I won’t play second fiddle to a ghost,_ she’d said, and when she’d slammed the door after her, Clarus had just stood there, hands at his hips, looking down at the polished floor. He hadn’t followed her. He never begged her to come back. In the end, she was right; Even when Clarus stopped talking about the captain of his old crew, the ghost of him lingered, present in every moment of hesitation, every hour spent locked in his office, every time his gaze went distant and no one, not even Iris, could call him back.

“Here’s something,” Iris said, and Gladio blinked the fog from his eyes. “It says ‘Lighthouse,’ but it’s in the middle of the woods. Who puts a lighthouse in the woods?”

“Any other lighthouses?” Gladio asked. He leaned over his sister, tracing the map with a finger. There were one or two other lighthouse markers, but they’d been crossed out or smudged. “This one’s only five hours away,” Gladio said. “Less if I rent a chocobo. I’ll scout it out, see if it means anything.”

“And I’ll hide Dad’s stuff,” Iris said. Gladio raised his brows. “Just in case. You’ll get me if the ship’s there, right?”

“I’ll come back,” Gladio said. “But you should go to Luna after you lock down the study. She’ll hide you if she has to.”

“She won’t have to,” Iris said. She folded up the map and shoved it in Gladio’s hands. “Don’t let them see you.”

“I won’t,” Gladio said, and leaned down to kiss her brow. “We’ll find him, Iris. I promise.”

Gladio rented a bird from the post at the edge of town, and spent a good half hour leading it in a half circle out of the way before crossing the river to hide his tracks. His father’s sword hung from his belt, and his bag, stuffed with maps and food and what valuables he could find for a last-ditch barter, thumped on his leg as he rode. The village fell away, leading into untouched grassland and massive pines, and Gladio skirted the edge of the forest, heartbeat thumping in his throat.

The woods were ancient and dark, with only a few shafts of light breaking through the heavy canopy. Gladio’s chocobo padded softly over a carpet of dead leaves, and Gladio nearly missed the deeper shadow sliding over them, a pool of dark grey and green cutting through the trees.

Gladio slipped off the bird’s back and tied its lead to a stub of a branch. Above him, a spindly tower barely held up a dormant airship, which took up the whole of a clearing of old stumps and rotting tree litter. No one manned the tower, and the ship itself was empty, without even a deckhand scrambling over the side or an engineer working on the tarp. Gladio approached it slowly, keeping to the shadows, but the clearing remained deserted.

Gladio sent a silent apology to Iris and swung his bag over his shoulder. He stepped out of the safety of the trees and into the shadow of the ship. Up close, he could see that the outer railing of the ship was lined with bronze statues, cats and birds and wolves and all manner of strange, unwieldy monsters carved into the hull. He spotted a small couerl lying on its back next to a scruffy metal dog, and wondered why his father never mentioned them.

“My name’s Gladiolus Amicitia,” he called. His voice echoed in the clearing, sounding hollow and far too young. “I’m here to request the release of my father.”

There was a long, terrible silence. Gladio glanced behind him, then jumped as a hatch opened just below the deck. A rope ladder swung out, slapping on the hull. Gladio waited, but no one spoke, and no shadows emerged to watch him from the deck.

“Alright,” he said. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome!” 

The voice was high, a little cracked, like the voices of young sailors who came through the city on leave. They all sounded ragged after a few years of shouting to be heard over the roar of the wind, and even Clarus had to drink gallons of soothing tea to sound like anything more than a crow. Gladio approached the ladder, trying to squint into the hatch to see the speaker, but the hatch was nothing but a black pit in the hull.

Slowly, swinging like a toy soldier with every step, Gladio started to climb.

“Not good with the ladder, huh?” someone said. Their voice was lower, with the slightest disinterested drawl. Gladio stopped, trying to see through the twisting, rocking motion of the ladder, but all he could see were the blurred shapes of the statues on the railing.

“Yeah, but look at him. He’s adorable,” said the first voice. 

“Most people,” Gladio said, forcing himself up the next rung, “would object to that.”

“Not me,” said the first voice. “I _am_ adorable.”

“Shut up,” said the second. “He’s almost here.”

Gladio stopped at the hatch, breathing hard, and blinked into the dim light of the hull. There was a lamp shining in the distance, but the room inside was empty, just rows and rows of cannons, swords, and boxes of junk. 

“Where the hell are you?” Gladio asked.

Silence. 

He sighed and heaved himself into the ship. It wasn’t nearly as organized as it was in his father’s day—There were strips of paper on the walls, some covered in crude drawings, others featuring perfect charcoal pictures of the sky. He passed what looked like bunks, hammocks swinging over discarded books, photos, and little souvenirs. There were several puppets and dolls sitting in places of honor by the round windows, their painted faces faded with age, and one had a well-loved stuffed rabbit hanging in the hammock, staring morosely into the dark. 

“You don’t think he’s the one?” whispered the second voice, somewhere behind him. Gladio swung around, but there was nothing there. Just boxes and hammocks, and a sad little stage made out of scrap wood and old curtains. He turned and kept going, feeling along the inner wall for a door. 

“Dunno,” said the first voice, after a while. “Could be.”

“Dad?” Gladio called. “Dad, are you there?”

There was a thump below him, and Gladio dropped to his knees. There had to be a trap door somewhere, or a stair, or something. He ran his hands over the boards, and one of the voices sighed.

“On your left, man.”

Gladio turned. The wall next to him had a slight crease a few feet away, barely noticeable to the naked eye. He dug his nails in the crease and yanked, ripping a hidden lock out of its casing.

“What the fuck, I _made_ that door,” said the second voice.

“You could’ve opened it yourself,” Gladio growled, and pushed himself into the gap.

“You know what?” the guy said, as Gladio almost tripped down a set of narrow, twisting stairs. His voice started to fade, drifting into the distance. “You’re right. He probably _is_ the one.”

Gladio bit back a snarl of frustration and clambered down the steps. They opened up into another chamber, a smaller one with thick wooden crafting tables and a row of makeshift toolboxes. A mechanical rabbit lay on the table, their guts spilled out in a tidy line, eyes closed as though in sleep.

“Poor thing,” Gladio said. He’d seen a few automatons in the city—They were usually wizards’ servants, scuttling about in the shadows—but it felt wrong for one to be lying there like that, opened up like a body on a slab. He skirted around it and made for the back of the room, where a heavy iron door was lodged like an afterthought in the corner. 

As he approached, a hand slipped through the bars at the top of the door, calloused and scarred and instantly familiar.

“Dad.” It came out as a groan, low and miserable, and Gladio ran for the door just as his father’s face appeared behind the bars. He looked unnaturally pale, almost ashen, and there was a sheen of sweat on his cheeks and neck. Gladio reached for his hand, and his father touched his fingers, grasping weakly.

“You need to go,” Clarus said. He was panting, and his eyes were dark with fear. “Gladio. Son. You shouldn’t have come.”

“I’m not letting them take you, Dad,” Gladio said. He blinked the sting of tears from his eyes. “I’ll get you out—There are tools here—“

In the distance, there was a dull, heavy thump, and Clarus’ face went paler still.

“No,” he said. “You need to leave now. Gladio, you can’t face this, you need to—“

“Wonderful,” said a voice behind Gladio, in a full Tenebraean drawl. “Another one.”

Gladio spun on his heel, reaching for his sword. Someone was crouching in the corner, near a ladder jutting out of the floor, but he couldn’t quite see their shape. He shuffled forward, hair prickling on his arms, and drew his sword.

“I’m here for my father,” he said, and the shape shifted a little. They were wearing some kind of horned helmet, and he could just see light flickering off the scale of a horn as their head tilted to the side. “I’m willing to trade. I have a clock from—“

“I’m not interested in treasure,” the man said. “Nothing you carry is worth the life of a traitor.” Gladio raised his brows. What kind of pirate didn’t care about a ransom? 

“Traitor?” he said. “My father isn’t a traitor. He left the Regalia with Captain Regis Caelum’s blessing—“

“ _Who is dead,_ ” the man hissed. He darted to the side, and something in his posture felt... wrong. Like there was too _much_ of him, like his legs weren’t quite right. “Dead at the hands of the king. Your father’s _employer._ I will keep this man as long as I desire—Regis’ blood is on his hands, and he’ll pay with his own, in time.”

“No,” Gladio said.

“Gladio, no.”

“He loved Regis,” Gladio said. “He’s been mourning him for fourteen—“

“You think you know what _grief_ is like?” The figure seemed to double over, their back bending unnaturally high. 

“Just let him go,” Gladio said. “I know you said you don’t care about treasure, but I have...” he sighed, shutting away a private dream of setting up his own bookstore with Iris, “I’ve saved up a bit, already. I’ll give you as much as you want.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do,” Gladio said. He ignored his father whispering in his ear, and took another step forward. “I’ll give you anything.”

“My price is high,” the man said. “A life for a life. Yours for his. You swear to stay with us, living out his debt in his stead, and we’ll let your father go free. That’s what I’ll accept.”

“Done,” Gladio said.

“No. No, Gladio, you don’t know what you’re—“

The figure shifted again, then leapt, a hulking, horned coeurl with claws of silver, slamming Gladio to his back on the boards. Gladio looked up into fiercely intelligent green eyes, and let out a broken gasp, struggling to breathe.

“Stay,” the monster growled, and lunged for the door. It swung open, and the beast dragged a bleeding, trembling Clarus into the open, flinging him to the floor like discarded trash. Clarus scrambled for Gladio, and they touched for just a second, just one brief, horrible breath, before Gladio was wrenched out of his grip and thrown full-force into a narrow, windowless cell. The door slammed shut, and Gladio threw himself at the bars, curling his fingers around them as his father was dragged, howling in fury, into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a meet-cute, am I right? :D


	3. Chapter 3

When the Regalia took to the air, she stirred slowly, her propellers stuttering, engines rumbling with discontent. Automatons skittered across the surface, gleaming creatures linked to the deck by heavy ropes that swung through the air like the threads of a broken loom. One engine let out a puff of fire and a horrendous growl, and a metal spider cursed darkly as they crawled to safety. 

Through it all, Gladio sat in his cramped cell, listening to the engines hum through the floor. He’d never flown before—The closest he’d come was a short visit to his father’s ship in the capital, which was docked for repairs—and he wondered what it would look like to rise past the dim light of the forest and into the sun. 

He wondered if his father found his chocobo.

He wondered if his father was even _alive._ He tried to remember what he’d promised—Had he asked for his safety, or just his release? Then there’d been the blood on his father’s shirt, rust-red and tacky, spreading dangerously low. He looked up at the bars over the door and tried to focus, forcing his breath to slow.

He couldn’t afford to break down. Not around his father, not after Regis’ crew died, after his mother left the cottage unmoored and reeling, lost without her easy smile and soft words of guidance. Gladio tried to recreate that, to make himself agreeable, friendly, a rock for his father and Iris to rely on. When Iris was bullied at school, it was Gladio who spoke to the teacher. When tax season came, Gladio worked the ledger in his father’s office early in the morning, before the house was awake. When his dad came home, puttered around the cottage like a trapped behemoth, and left on another mission far too soon, Gladio was there to make Iris breakfast and dust off old excuses.

Now, alone on a ship with a furious, snarling beast, Gladio tipped his head back and let out a shaky breath.

Focus. He had to focus. He thought of the book he used to read to Iris, back when everything started to fall apart, tucked away in their room while their parents hissed and whispered behind the door. He’d read it dozens of times, raising his voice to drown out the rest of the world, and bits of it always came to him unbidden, worming into his brain when he was counting funds or ducking behind a cart to avoid Ravus.

“On the day the queen of the elves disappeared,” he said, as the engines rose to a roar beneath him, “her advisor opened the cabinet where she kept her heart, and found it empty...”

He was almost to the second chapter when he heard a thump at the door. He forced himself to his feet, bracing himself for a blow, and clenched his fist on the wall as the door creaked open.

A great horned head tilted to the side, and Gladio realized, with a sick twist in his gut, that the creature was standing on his hind legs. He wasn’t quite a cat, really, but he was hardly human, which made the blue and black captain’s uniform, cobbled together in clumsy, uneven stitches over his violet fur, look like the result of a child’s dress-up game with a family pet. He followed Gladio’s gaze, and his brows lowered, twisting into a scowl.

“My pilot says you may need better accommodations,” he said. He almost sounded like Ravus--Stiff and forced, like the words burned on the way out. “You’ll come with me.”

“What’d you do with my dad?” Gladio asked. “Is he alive?”

The beast’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Of course. Why… You thought I’d...” He drew himself up, and twisted a paw in the front of Gladio’s shirt. “Your quarters are this way.”

“I can walk on my _own,_ ” Gladio snapped, and the beast’s lip curled just a fraction, revealing a row of sharp, white teeth. “And maybe I don’t want to come with you. Maybe I like the cell.”

“I’m sure you do,” said the beast, but he didn’t let go. He just dragged Gladio up the stairs, tail flicking against his legs, and through the broken hidden door. The ship crawled with automatons, bronze wolves and mimirs and owls that stopped to stare as they passed, and Gladio squared his shoulders, unnerved by their intent, intelligent gaze. “You’re to stay on the port side of the ship at all times. The starboard side belongs to me and mine, and if you set foot through that red door there--” he pointed, and Gladio caught a flash of red as he was whirled away down a row of hammocks-- “I’ll personally throw you off the ship. It’s a long way down,” he added, glancing back at Gladio, “but I hear the trip is rather brief, in the end. Here we are.”

He yanked Gladio into a small, cramped cabin, and Gladio reeled, unable to find his balance as the ship gently swayed on the breeze. He held onto the wall, and the beast watched him, a shadow against the door.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well, what?” Gladio said. “You gonna explain any of this? The hell were they, out there? The hell are _you?_ ”

“I don’t think I like your tone.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like how you ripped a hole in my dad’s chest, so that makes us even.”

“Even,” the beast said. He stalked forward, and Gladio fell back, reaching for a sword that wasn’t there. “Even, you say. Here you are, alive, in a nice, spacious room of your own, with a bunk that’s nailed down, and you say we’re even. You,” he said, and his voice lowered dangerously, on the verge of a growl, “the son of a pirate, dressed like a country noble with your--” 

He grabbed Gladio’s hand, and Gladio pushed against him, backing him up a step. The beast held Gladio’s hand before his face in one heavy paw, shaking it as though trying to show Gladio a new, undiscovered path in his lifeline. 

“With your…” 

His eyes were bright, up close. Brighter than Gladio expected, a blue-green like the sea beyond Insomnia’s walls, and unsuited for the face of a beast. 

“Your eyes are human,” Gladio said.

The beast threw Gladio back with a snarl, and Gladio fell against the wall, breathing hard. He’d barely recovered before the door slammed shut with a bang that rattled the walls, and he fumbled along the side of the room, searching for a light with fingers that shook. He clicked on a lamp fitted to the wall in an iron cage, and covered his face with his free hand, trying to breathe. He was trapped. Trapped on a ship with automatons that moved without the direction of a wizard, with a creature in a terrible suit and the brute strength of a runaway cart, with nowhere to go but down. 

“On the day…” Gladio gasped, sinking to his knees in the _nice, spacious room_ that had become his cell, “the queen of the… queen of the elves…”

—

“Wow,” Noct said. “Yikes.”

“Yeah,” said Prompto. They crouched outside Ignis’ quarters, just below the pilot’s room where Cindy, Noct’s replacement, was cheerily sailing the Regalia towards the next safe haven. Prompto, comfortable now in the brass body of a mechanical labrador, pushed against Noct’s flank, edging him out of Ignis’ line of sight. Ignis’ bedroom used to belong to Noct’s dad, but it was a junk room now, with a slashed, sunken mattress, boxes of parts for repairs littered around the place, and the rose, jammed in the middle of his dad’s old chess table, half wilted and already drooping. 

Ignis hunched over his own paws, a hulking shape over the ruin of his sewing table. 

“You know,” Noct said, and Ignis glanced his way, his cold eyes dark with misery. “You could just ask. I’ve got better paws with a needle.”

“Dude, you remember the last time you tried to fix a button?” Prompto asked. 

“I would prefer if you left,” Ignis said. Noct ignored him. Ignis took the curse worse than most, he knew--None of the others had to worry about eating, or bathing, or trying to comb a mane of matted fur around their horns. But Ignis had always been a fastidious kid, probably born with a can of hair gel in his grubby little hands, and Noct knew he needed to pretend, sometimes. 

“So?” he said. He jumped onto Ignis’ mattress, puffing up a spray of feathers, and flicked his wiry whiskers. “What’d he think?”

“He thinks I’m a monster,” Ignis said. 

“Ouch. Well...”

“He’s crying in there, you know,” Prompto said, and Ignis and Noct turned to stare. Prompto shuffled his paws on the rug. “I mean, he’s quiet about it, but I heard him through the wall. He just lost everything. He didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Ignis turned away, his back to Noct and Prompto. He held his jacket in both paws, and stuck a claw through a hole in the sleeve. “None of us got that chance.”

“Then you have something in common,” Noct said. Ignis didn’t respond. He just crouched there, holding his patchwork jacket, the matted, tangled mane of fur bristling around his neck. “Just a thought. Maybe you should invite him to dinner tonight, too. You both have to eat, even if you do skip when you think I’m not looking.”

“Go,” Ignis said, in a soft voice. 

“Think about it,” Noct said. “We’re running out of time.”

“ _Go._ ”

“Come on, buddy,” Prompto said. He jerked his head, and Noct slunk off the mattress, padding heavily over the rug. They left Ignis alone, hunched in the corner of his room, and walked in silence down the narrow hall. Prompto’s head hung low, and Noct thought of the browning petals of the rose, which had seemed so bright and full when the Wizard Ardyn, dragging a howling, terrified Ignis by the horns, thrust it into the chess table. 

“My brother will have you die here tonight,” he said, as Ignis clawed long, bloody streaks up his arm. “But I’m willing to give you a chance.”

Noct’s footsteps faltered, and Prompto looked back, tilting his head. 

“Prompto,” Noct said. “I think our new guest is probably hungry. What do you say we take a detour?”

Prompto bared his teeth in a smile, and his tail uncurled to wag, kicking up dust. “Lead the way.”


End file.
